11.07.2024

IEG evaluated: "excellent european research"

The Leibniz Institute of European History (IEG) in Mainz is to be funded by the federal and state governments for a further seven years. This was recommended by the Senate of the Leibniz Association on 9 July. An international and interdisciplinary evaluation group has recognised the Mainz research institute's very good to excellent European research.

This was preceded by a two-day evaluation of the IEG in December 2023. The commission particularly emphasised the IEG's cross-European issues, its global contextualising perspectives on Europe, the high-class developments in digital research and publication as well as the international scholarship and guest programme.
As a member of the Leibniz Association, the Institute of European History is evaluated by the Leibniz Senate every seven years. An independent commission examines how the institute has developed in recent years and to what extent the plans for the future are convincing.
At the end of 2023, the IEG concluded its research programme "Dealing with Difference in Modern Europe". Since 2018, the researchers at the IEG had been conducting interdisciplinary research in three research areas. Their achievements were rated as "very good" and "very good to excellent" by the commission.
The plans for the structural development of the IEG were also evaluated favourably. The departmental division into "Western History of Religion" and "Universal History", which dates back to 1950, will be dissolved. In future, they will be replaced by the departments "Society", "Religion" and "Digitality".
Director Nicole Reinhardt, who has been at the IEG since 2022, and Director Johannes Paulmann, who has been at the IEG since 2011, are delighted with the excellent assessment. Together with the staff, they developed the future programme, the "Research Agenda from 2024", which was also evaluated as "very good". The planned strategic expansion of the IEG with the establishment of a fourth research area "Environment" was also rated very positively and supported by the commission.
"We are delighted that the Institute has been recognised for its excellent work in all research areas as well as the area of digitality," says Nicole Reinhardt. Johannes Paulmann is pleased "that the Commission also supports the Institute's plans to establish the fourth research area 'Environment'". The Institute's management sees the funding recommendation as an excellent basis for further expanding the IEG's position as an interdisciplinary, cross-epochal and cross-border research institution on the history of Europe.
The Gemeinsame Wissenschaftskonferenz von Bund und Ländern (Joint Science Conference of the Federal Government and the states) will now make the final decision on the Institute's continued funding.